The present invention relates generally to a benefits processing system and more specifically to the receipt of a benefits application and the generation of a benefits plan and a succession plan based on the benefits plans.
Existing social benefit plans include various levels of data management responsibilities. Social benefit plans may include government based plans, for example such as welfare, medical assistance or social security plans. Social benefit plans may also include non-government based benefits, such as company provided health care or other types of benefits.
In managing the various amounts of beneficiary information, these plans include back-end computing systems to actively inventory and track the benefit information. This information includes the name and addresses of the beneficiaries, as well as the information relating to the particular benefits received.
For example, the benefits software system may include a database of information for various benefits, such as military information for military benefits, age information for age-related benefits, family status for social welfare benefits, among others. These benefit systems and the software included thereon are single-dimensional providing information solely on existing benefit situations. These systems are also limited in the ability to share information across numerous systems.
In the existing systems, if a person or organization wishes to apply for a social benefit, this typically entails an enrollment process. This process includes the collection of various amounts of personal information. This information is then manually entered into the benefits system associated with the specific intended benefit. This manual entry is very time consuming, not only for the benefits coordinator running the software, but the person or organization, i.e. intended beneficiary, who must proceed through this process in order to receive the benefit.
Under existing systems, the user manually enters this information for the single benefit plan. The existing systems do not have the ability to access a database of user information to extract previously entered information because the vast difference in information required for different social benefits. For example, a beneficiary registering to receive a medical-based social benefit enters different information than a beneficiary registering to receive a job-assistance social benefit. Therefore, the existing systems do not overlap the beneficiary information.
Additionally, the existing systems address the present benefits plan without considering or addressing future benefit plans. It is recognized that as different factors change, the terms and conditions of the social benefit plan also change. For example, as a beneficiary ages, the benefits may also adjust. Therefore, it is important for the benefits software system to actively monitor the different conditions of the benefit plans.
As the conditions for benefits change, benefits themselves change. The existing systems do not provide an automated successor planning process. Rather, these systems require user-intervention, such as manually determining a successor plan and re-entering benefits information to generate the new social benefits application.
As these social benefits plan are typically government based operations, overhead associated with the processing of social benefits detracts from the funding or other resources available to beneficiaries. The existing systems require extensive amounts of manual data entry and do not include back end processing support to streamline the application process. This streamlined process is unavailable not only for new social benefit applications, but also for the continued processing of benefits for when the benefit conditions change.